Three strikes against the polls, or the Govt is out

Are the polls exaggerating Labor's lead? Will the polls show the parties drawing much closer together once John Howard calls the election? Is the Coalition's position in its own marginals looking much better than any of the national polls suggest?

If the answer to each of these questions is "yes" - indeed, if "yes" is the answer to any two of these questions - the Government is still in with a chance. However, if the answer to each of these questions is "no" - or even if this is the right answer to just one of them - Labor is likely to win by a margin that will comfortably exceed Bob Hawke's overwhelming victory in 1983.

The possibility that the polls are exaggerating Labor's lead cannot be discounted. Most commentators seem to think that because Labor is well ahead in all the polls - by 12 percentage points, two-party preferred (in today's Newspoll) - the running average can't be far wrong. This is especially true, the standard argument runs, because Labor has been a long way ahead for such a long time. But the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.

It is perfectly possible that all the polls are exaggerating Labor's position and underestimating the Coalition's. Nor is this just a theoretical possibility. In 1980, the final figures from all four national polls (McNair Anderson, Morgan, Saulwick and Spectrum) underestimated how well the Coalition government would do and overestimated Labor. All the polls pointed to a Labor victory. But, in a debacle for the polling industry, Labor lost.

Polling improvements?

Hasn't polling got better since then? Not in the sense that if the polls all say the same thing they are bound to get the size of the lead right.

In 2004, five of the six national polls underestimated the Coalition's first preference vote; four also underestimated its two-party preferred. In 1996, three of the final polls underestimated the Coalition's share of the two-party preferred and all four exaggerated Labor's share of the first preferences.

But the polls are just as capable of overestimating the Coalition's position as they are of underestimating it. In 2001, three out of four national polling organisations exaggerated the Coalition's lead; so, too, did four of the six national polls in 1998.

What about the idea that there is likely to be a swing to the Coalition once Mr Howard goes to Yarralumla? This is a view that supporters of the Coalition have to hope is right.

In 2004, there does appear to have been a swing to the Coalition between the calling of the election and the posting of the result. On the evidence of Newspoll and, less clearly, the evidence of the ACNielsen and Morgan polls, the formal campaign period saw the Coalition make gains at the expense of the Opposition.

This time we may well see something similar.

After all, if Howard were to call an election with Labor as far ahead in the polls as it is in the most recent ACNielsen poll (57:43), Galaxy poll (57:43) or Morgan poll (60.5:39.5) we would be entering uncharted territory.

Labor won in 1983 with 53.2 per cent and in 1972 with 52.7 per cent of the two-party preferred. The Coalition won in 1996 with 53.6 per cent and in 1975 with 55.7 per cent of the two-party preferred.

But you have to go back to 1943, when Labor was in office, when the Liberal Party was not yet formed and when the non-Labor forces were in complete disarray, to find a winning margin for Labor (58.2 per cent, according to the estimate produced by Malcolm Mackerras) that is in the same territory as the margins suggested by these polls.

However, far from being typical of recent elections, national election campaigns that see governments gain ground are not common.

In the seven national election campaigns conducted since 1987 (the first in which Newspoll was a player), there has been only one occasion - the disastrous Hewson campaign of 1993 - other than 2004 when a government seems to have gained ground.

By contrast, in the 1987 campaign, 1990 campaign and 1996 campaign - again, on the evidence of all the polls not just Newspoll - Labor governments lost support. (If we compare the polls at the beginning of the 1998 campaign to the election result itself, Newspoll detected no change in support for the government and opposition, ACNielsen showed the government losing ground, while Morgan had the government making up ground).

'Bellwether' hopes

Which brings us to the Government's last hope - its marginals.

This is the line the Prime Minister went down when he told the party room that while the national polls were looking bad things were looking reasonably bright in the "bellwether" seat of Eden-Monaro - a seat that has changed hands only when the government itself has changed.

The notion of a "bellwether" seat is as misleading as it is beloved: the Government may succeed in propping up some marginals only to lose the rest - and then some - in a rout.

Nonetheless, ultimately it is seats rather than votes that determine elections: some governments have failed to mobilise 50 per cent of the two-party preferred and yet held on to office.

This was Howard's experience in 1998, when the Coalition secured 49.0 per cent of the two-party preferred, and it could happen again since this year since Labor needs 51.3 per cent of the two-party preferred (assuming a "uniform swing") to get enough seats to govern in its own right.

Far from enjoying a swing that yields a predictable number of seats, Labor may find a disproportionate share of its gains locked up in seats it holds already or languishing in seats that are retained by the Coalition; for example, seats with a disproportionate number of voters known disparagingly as "doctors' wives."

That said, even if the Coalition is doing better than the latest Newspoll suggests, it is hard to believe that it could finish with just 47 per cent or 46 per cent of the two-party preferred and still be saved by keeping Labor at bay in its marginal seats.

Without a further swing it is difficult to see how the Coalition can get back.

Murray Goot is professor of politics at Macquarie University and author, with Tim Rowse, of Divided Nation? Indigenous Affairs and the Imagined Public. This piece was originally published at Australian Policy Online; poll figures have been updated.